Jewish Women's Archive - Writerhttp://jwa.org/blog/writer
enDeborah, Golda, Letty, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in 2013http://jwa.org/blog/deborah-golda-letty-and-me-being-female-and-jewish-in-2013
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<div class="field-item even"><div class="jwa-media image "><a href="/media/letty-with-marlo-gloria-robin-and-pat"><img src="/sites/jwa.org/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/me_marlo_gloria_robin_pat.jpg?itok=zpuJz63t" width="300" height="251" alt="Letty with Marlo, Gloria, Robin, and pat" /></a><div class="caption" style="width: 300px;"><a href="/media/letty-with-marlo-gloria-robin-and-pat" class="object-details-link"><img src="/sites/jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/img_trans.png" class="sprite sprite-search" alt="Full image"></a><div class="caption-inner">Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Marlo Thomas, Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan, and Pat Carbine, at a <em>Ms.</em> magazine event, late 1970s.</div></div></div></div>
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<div class="field-item even"><p>As a feminist, a Jew, and a sometimes-writer, I should have had <a href="/encyclopedia/article/pogrebin-letty-cottin">Letty Cottin Pogrebin</a> on my top 10 list of awesome people I’d love to have dinner with someday. I can’t believe that I didn’t know about this incredible writer-activist until this summer, when I began working at the New Center for Arts and Culture. As soon as I heard that <a href="/feminism/?id=JWA058">Letty co-founded <em>Ms. </em>magazine</a>, her <a href="http://www.newcenterboston.org/">New Center program</a> quickly became my most highly anticipated of our fall season. And I realized that I needed to know more about her than what my quick online search produced.</p>
<p>While I knew her New Center discussion with Robin Young would focus on her latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Friend-Whos-Sick/dp/1610392833"><em>How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who’s Sick</em></a>, I decided to start with her seminal work, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Deborah-Golda-Me-Female-America/dp/0385425120"><em>Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America</em></a>. Published in the early 1990s, I couldn’t help but read her book with a bit of curiosity: how far (or not) have things come for us as women and Jews in America, over 20 years later? And, how can we further adopt Letty’s ideas and practices? For too long, I’ve been frustrated that many in my generation see feminism as a dirty word, and that we don’t recognize the struggles of women before us that have allowed us advantages we take for granted. Reading about Letty’s life and work has been a catalyst for how I think about my own feminism and Jewish identity.</p>
<p>Letty’s passionate writing covers everything from her religious upbringing to her disillusionment with and subsequent re-entry into practicing the Jewish faith, biblical female figures, and Hollywood’s portrayal of Jewish women. But, in my opinion, the two most compelling issues she explores include the role of women in Judaism and her experience with anti-Semitism in the feminist community—and what she’s done to better these obstacles.</p>
<p>Raised as a Reform Jewish woman, I rarely if ever felt left out of my faith because of my gender…and this was thanks to the efforts of those before me. My commitment to creating inclusive, egalitarian communities strengthened when reading about Letty’s ad-hoc High Holiday services on Fire Island, <a href="/media/spirituality-2-still-image">feminist seders</a>, and experiences with the Women of the Wall. In strange way, while reading this book I felt like I was having a conversation with Letty in my head, questioning whether or not her tool to overcome prejudice and misunderstanding—conversations among women of different backgrounds—would still work as well today.</p>
<p>My answer? Yes. Letty advocates for peaceful change, and champions dialogue groups to promote better understanding. In fact, she has been meeting with a Black-Jewish women’s group for many years, in addition to a Palestinian-Jewish one. The difference is that I think today, we need to discuss gender equality in a gender-equal setting. The sisterhood needs the brotherhood to fully come on board. Letty notes this, when writing about how she and her husband read books on gender roles and discussed how to raise a family without those stereotypes (and she clearly succeeded, given her accomplished career).</p>
<p>I don’t fully understand women my age who don’t like to label themselves as feminists. But I suspect they think the negative connotation will repel others, particularly men. I want to change that. I want a new norm: that instead of laughing off the term feminist, we need to actively seek out men who label themselves as such. I’m starting a feminist dialogue group in Boston that is open to all genders, and I hope others will do or have done the same (and if you have, I’d love to hear how it’s worked for you; please leave a comment!). Letty’s frankness reminds me that we need to make ourselves vulnerable in order to grow. The future of an inclusive Judaism depends on our own creativity and willingness to engage with one another, and those who are different. We can reshape and redefine our traditions so that they carry greater meaning in the 21<sup>st</sup> century for Jews of all backgrounds and genders.</p>
<p>In the end, reading Letty’s story and reflections made me realize: we’ve come a long way, and we have even further to go. It’s up to us to keep the dialogue going and continue to sustain the legacy that women like Letty Cottin Pogrebin have left for us.</p>
<p><em>The New Center will present Letty Cottin Pogrebin in conversation with Robin Young at Temple Isaiah in Lexington on Thursday, October 24<sup>th</sup> at 7:30 p.m. For tickets and more information, call 617-531-4610 or visit </em><a href="http://www.newcenterboston.org"><em>www.newcenterboston.org</em></a><em>. </em></p>
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<a href="/topics/feminism">Feminism</a><a href="/tags/identity">Identity</a>Thu, 17 Oct 2013 14:54:05 +0000jrozensky17279 at http://jwa.orgWide, Lush, Sharp, Brighthttp://jwa.org/blog/wide-lush-sharp-bright
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<div class="field-item even"><div class="jwa-media image "><a href="/media/chanel-dubofsky"><img src="/sites/jwa.org/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/chaneldubofsky-resized.jpg?itok=vcijRvlV" width="175" height="239" alt="Chanel Dubofsky" /></a><div class="caption" style="width: 175px;"><a href="/media/chanel-dubofsky" class="object-details-link"><img src="/sites/jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/img_trans.png" class="sprite sprite-search" alt="Full image"></a><div class="caption-inner">Chanel Dubofsky</div></div></div></div>
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<div class="field-item even"><p>When I was eleven I wrote a novella. It was seventy-eight terrible (and handwritten!) pages, but it was made with intention and without fear, and it was mine.</p>
<p>Writing for fun in fifth and sixth grade, or doing anything smart or interesting as a girl, pretty much guaranteed that I was going to be a social pariah. This was okay with me. (I admit this only after much discussion with my therapist.) Even then, writing was the most important thing to me, and if it meant that I didn’t have friends, that was fine. I had entire worlds stashed away in my head that were all mine, wide, lush, sharp, bright. Secretly, I was the luckiest.</p>
<p>I still feel this way—lucky to have my brain—but I know some things now that I didn’t know then. </p>
<p>For me, writing requires some strange combination of aloneness, chatter, and ambient noise, and often people are hard to fit into that equation. But, I need other writers. I need to know that there are others who feel the way I do about words, who understand what Maya Angelou means when she says, “<a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mayaangelo133956.html">There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.</a>”</p>
<p>Truthfully, I always needed other writers. As you know if you’re a writer, letting people into your brain is kind of like letting someone see you naked: Just…be careful. Not everyone deserves it. Finding the like minded is an unbelievable gift. Finding those who understand what it’s like to have a universe in your head, or to need a pen all the time, or what it is like when you read a perfect sentence, is what keeps a writer from going crazy.</p>
<p>I need other writers because when I talk about my work out loud, it gets bigger and clearer. I see what’s there. Writers are (fine, I am) a cranky, unpredictable lot. Finding us can be hard; getting us together can be even harder. Sometimes it’s a matter of luck, so if you think you might be onto something, I would recommend jumping on it immediately. It’s not often that an opportunity comes along like the Rising Voices Fellowship that’s serious about cultivating writers <em>and</em> community. The right company makes a difference. I promise.</p>
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Wed, 04 Sep 2013 14:00:53 +0000jrozensky17174 at http://jwa.orgMeet Bel Kaufman: She Wrote What She Knew http://jwa.org/blog/meet-bel-kaufman-she-wrote-what-she-knew
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<div class="field-item even"><div class="jwa-media image "><a href="/media/bel-kaufman-b-w"><img src="/sites/jwa.org/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/kaufman-bel-bw.png?itok=umgeBWdh" width="195" height="250" alt="Bel Kaufman" /></a><div class="caption" style="width: 195px;"><a href="/media/bel-kaufman-b-w" class="object-details-link"><img src="/sites/jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/img_trans.png" class="sprite sprite-search" alt="Full image"></a><div class="caption-inner">Bel Kaufman</div></div></div></div>
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<div class="field-item even"><p>Adapted from <em>The Journey Home: How Jewish Women Shaped Modern America,</em> by Joyce Antler (Schocken Books, 1997). </p>
<p>Bel Kaufman, the daughter of East European immigrants and granddaughter of Yiddish novelist Sholom Aleichem, emigrated from Odessa with her family in 1923 when she was twelve, quickly learned English, and used the public libraries voraciously. </p>
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<p>In 1930, she entered Hunter College, commuting daily to its concrete campus like other “subway scholars.” Despite their high academic achievements, to college officials these women seemed unrefined in both manners and appearance...To correct their social ineptitude, the school mandated courses in grooming, hygiene, and health, in which they were informed, among other advice, that bagels were nutritionally unsound.</p>
<p>Bel Kaufman gravitated to courses in English and French. Inspired by the high standards of her teachers, whom she credited for her own love of literature, she graduated magna cum laude in 1934, a member of Phi Beta Kappa. After college she went on to Columbia University for a master’s in English, specializing in eighteenth-century literature.</p>
<p></p><div class="jwa-media image inline-image-left"><a href="/media/bel-kaufman-signing-books"><img src="/sites/jwa.org/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/8549185588_4146ea7c91_b.jpg?itok=C6APlpqA" width="300" height="300" alt="Bel Kaufman Signing Books" /></a><div class="caption" style="width: 300px;"><a href="/media/bel-kaufman-signing-books" class="object-details-link"><img src="/sites/jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/img_trans.png" class="sprite sprite-search" alt="Full image" /></a><div class="caption-inner">Bel Kaufman signing her book Up The Down Staircase at the 2013 JWA Making Trouble, Making History Luncheon. </div></div></div>
<p>But it was a course in education at Hunter that set the direction of her career; when she found herself in front of a class of eager youngsters as a student teacher, she felt she had discovered her métier. Still, she might have gone into journalism if her mother had not insisted, like so many other Depression era immigrant mothers, that “even if you marry, you must have a profession,” and teaching was the most secure.</p>
<p>To receive a New York City teaching license, however, Kaufman had to submit to a rigorous written examination (which she passed with flying colors) and undergo an even more grueling oral interview. She was required to speak articulately and grammatically, without any vulgarisms or foreignisms... </p>
<p>...Kaufman remembers waiting outside the Board of Examiners’ hearing room, in a cold sweat, as one after another of the candidates staggered out, often in tears...The examiners fixed me with their collective eye, asked if I were born in this country, [and] then had me pronounce some very difficult sentences.” Although she took numerous speech courses, she failed the test three times [before passing] on the fourth try...</p>
<p>To pass, however, candidates also had to interpret a piece of literature. Kaufman received negative grades on her reading of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Euclid Alone,” and failed the test again. This time she fought back, sending the Board of Examiners affidavits from her professors testifying to her literary skills, as well as a letter from Edna St. Vincent Millay herself, to whom she had sent a copy of her analysis of the poem. Millay wrote to the examiners that Kaufman’s interpretation was extraordinarily perceptive. Yet...the examiners voted her down once again. The following year, perhaps because they had had enough of her, Kaufman passed the orals and received her teaching license.</p>
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Elsewhere on JWA:</h2>
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<a href="/thisweek/jan/27/1965/bel-kaufman">This Week in History Publication of Bel Kaufman's "Up the Down Staircase"</a></li>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hosdjC7M9zA&amp;list=UUy4OVQwrdL_FSeZNVrXkILA&amp;index=5 ">Bel's Remarks at JWA Luncheon</a></li>
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Elsewhere on the Web:</h2>
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<a href="http://www.openroadmedia.com/blog/2013-03-10/%C3%89migr%C3%A9-Teacher-Writer-The-Extraordinary-Bel-Kaufman.aspx ">Émigré, Teacher, Writer: The Extraordinary Bel Kaufman</a></li>
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<p>Kaufman began teaching in the mid-1930s; her career lasted some twenty-five years and took her to fourteen different public high schools in all parts of New York City. Although she taught for many years at the High School of the Performing Arts, her formative years in the profession were spent in less selective neighborhood schools where she had to deal with sullen, unmotivated adolescents. Her attempt to make a difference in the lives of those students, coupled with her often hilarious encounters with local and downtown school bureaucracies, became the life experience that shaped <em>Up the Down Staircase</em>.</p>
<p>Published in 1964, <em>Staircase</em> was a national best-seller. With over six million copies in print, the book has by now gone through forty-seven editions and been translated into sixteen languages. <em>Time</em> magazine called it “easily the most popular novel about U.S. public schools in history.” It was made into a hit movie in 1967.</p>
<p>...Kaufman engages her readers’ sympathy with the portraits of lost, unmotivated teens, committed if frustrated teachers, and a rigid, irrelevant bureaucracy. “Please admit bearer to class,” runs the principal’s note from which the book gets it title. “Detained by me for going Up the Down stairway and subsequent insolence.”</p>
<p>...She wrote only sporadically during her teaching career, and had long felt inferior to the members of the literary clan into which she was born. With the success of <em>Staircase</em>, however, Kaufman felt she could claim her family heritage. She finds similarities between her writing and her grandfather’s—a sympathy for ordinary citizens, interest in social reform, a tone of wit and irony. Like her grandfather, she considers her writing a kind of Jewish humor, which she describes as “laughter with tears, turning the table in tragedy and snubbing disaster.”</p>
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<a href="/topics/teachers">Teachers</a>, <a href="/topics/fiction">Fiction</a>, <a href="/topics/journalism">Journalism</a>, <a href="/topics/non-fiction">Non-Fiction</a><a href="/tags/hunter-college-normal-college">Hunter College (Normal College)</a>, <a href="/tags/high-school-of-performing-arts-school-of-performing-arts-in-new-york-city">High School of Performing Arts (School of Performing Arts in New York City)</a>, <a href="/tags/womens-history-month">Women&#039;s History Month</a>Mon, 18 Mar 2013 19:31:55 +0000jrozensky16756 at http://jwa.orgDorothy Fields put the "broad" in Broadwayhttp://jwa.org/blog/dorothy-fields-put-the-broad-in-broadway
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<div class="field-item even"><p> Last Friday marked the 106th anniversary of <a href="/thisweek/jul/15/1904/dorothy-fields">the birth of Dorothy Fields</a>, the first woman to be <a href="/thisweek/mar/08/1971/dorothy-fields">inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame</a> and the only woman who holds an uncontested spot in the boys' club that is credited with creating the Great American Songbook. Fields was a member of a prolific showbiz family, with a father and two brothers in the business. You can learn more about her life in the <a href="/encyclopedia/article/fields-dorothy"><i>Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia</i></a>, or hear her tell the story herself on the album <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VA0B94/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=itsdle&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373&amp;creativeASIN=B000VA0B94">An Evening With Dorothy Fields</a> (a recording of a 1972 event at the 92nd Street Y in New York). </p>
<p> Fields was a remarkable woman in many ways, still influencing our culture nearly forty years after her death: President Obama alluded to her lyrics in his <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/inaugural-address/">inaugural address</a>; teenagers danced to one of her songs in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK4ngRywgHQ">Step Up 3D</a>; and when Stephen Sondheim released a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679439072/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=itsdle&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399369&amp;creativeASIN=0679439072">book of his lyrics</a> including his musings about his predecessors, Fields stood out as just about the only lyricist who comes out looking great. </p>
<p> As both a lyricist and a librettist, Fields had the opportunity to create a variety of characters who pushed boundaries of femininity on stage. Fields loved to play with the archetype of the "broad," the woman with a quick wit and big personality. From sharp-shooter <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Get_Your_Gun_%28musical%29">Annie Oakley</a> to taxi-dancer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Charity">Charity Hope Valentine</a>, Fields' heroines balanced power and vulnerability. At times they drew strength from their transgressive gender presentation and sexuality; at times those very same characteristics exposed them to criticism and vulnerability. </p>
<object width="425" height="349"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iG3VfKlfDEk?version=3&amp;hl=en_US" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iG3VfKlfDEk?version=3&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="349"></embed></object> <p> The broads created by Dorothy Fields were not shy about speaking their piece. In one of Fields’ early book musicals, Stars in Your Eyes, Ethel Merman introduced the song "A Lady Needs a Change," a paean to sexual variety. The song asserts that a woman is not only right in seeking out sexual pleasure, but that it's her partner's obligation to keep things spicy in order to keep her around. </p>
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</script></div> <p> And yet Fields' women were aware of the double-edged sword of their "broad-ness." Gittel, the heroine of Fields' final musical, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seesaw_(musical)">Seesaw</a>, laments "I've got a big, loud mouth / I'm always talking much to free / if you go for tact and manners / better stay away from me." But it are the very flaws Gittle catalogs that endear her to the audience. </p>
<object width="425" height="349"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Dq53tTcI3ks?version=3&amp;hl=en_US" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Dq53tTcI3ks?version=3&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="349"></embed></object> <p> Fields hinted at a dark side to this acceptance. Annie Oakley can't land her man until she "civilizes" herself, ultimately choosing to throw away her career so that her lover won't feel threatened. Charity loses the one nice guy she's ever dated because he can't handle her past as a rent girl. And yet, Annie Get Your Gun ends with a winking acknowledgment that Annie will always hold the cards in her relationship, and even Charity lives "hopefully ever after." </p>
<p> This may come across as a bit of apologizing for an artist who simply wasn't as much of a feminist as I want her to have been. After all, for every strong woman number like "<a href="http://itsdlevy.tumblr.com/post/7642070226/michele-lees-performance-of-this-raunchy-number">Holiday Inn</a>," she also wrote codependent anthems like "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1kFK09V7c">Make the Man Love Me</a>." Annie, Charity, Gittle, and others all end their shows either in the arms of a man or with a declaration that they will find themselves a man or else. </p>
<p> And yet, Fields herself was a broad. Just listen to her talk about her life: </p>
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</script><p> And Fields never found herself that man. Her first marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce. Biographer Charlotte Greenspan questions whether Fields’ second marriage, to Eli Lahm, was happy either, noting that there is only one surviving photograph of the couple together. Dorothy Fields is remembered as an artist and a trailblazer, not as somebody's wife or mother. Greenspan posits that whether or not Fields was happy in the role of wife, by the time she married Lahm, she was a formidable woman in her own right unlikely to be hampered by a husband. One wonders whether the sometimes pitiable lengths to which her heroines went in order to secure themselves a mate were wish fulfillment on the part of Fields -- or lampooning. </p>
<p> It's hard to imagine that Fields, who worked until the day she died (during the rehearsal period for Seesaw), envied Oakley's sacrificing her career for romance. And the fairy godmother that inspires Charity to live hopefully ever after is revealed to be an actress on a publicity stunt for a television show. </p>
<p> So looking back on her life and work, we're left to debate whether her characters were liberated broads or merely not as oppressed as some of their contemporaries; whether Fields was acquiescing to societal standards or mocking them. And it seems to me that regardless of where each of us lands with respect to these questions, the fact that her work continues to inspire such discussion so many decades later is itself an achievement worth celebrating. </p>
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<a href="/topics/music">Music</a>, <a href="/topics/musicals">Musicals</a>, <a href="/topics/writing">Writing</a><a href="/tags/pop-culture">Pop Culture</a>, <a href="/tags/songwriting">Songwriting</a>, <a href="/tags/songwriters-hall-of-fame-1">Songwriters Hall of Fame</a>Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:06:44 +0000lberkenwald14456 at http://jwa.orgMeet Jaclyn Friedman: Jewess with attitudehttp://jwa.org/blog/jaclyn-friedman
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<div class="field-item even"><div class="jwa-media image "><a href="/media/jaclyn-friedman"><img src="/sites/jwa.org/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/jaclyn-friedman-brave.jpg?itok=D5dPrv__" width="260" height="250" alt="Jaclyn Friedman" /></a><div class="caption" style="width: 260px;"><a href="/media/jaclyn-friedman" class="object-details-link"><img src="/sites/jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/img_trans.png" class="sprite sprite-search" alt="Full image"></a><div class="caption-inner">Jaclyn Friedman, writer, speaker and co-editor of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Yes-Means-Visions-Female-Without/dp/1580052576"><i>Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape</i></a>.
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<div class="field-item even"><p>I recently had the pleasure to sit down for brunch with Jaclyn Friedman, Executive Director of <a href="http://www.womenactionmedia.org/">Women, Action and the Media</a> and co-editor of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Yes-Means-Visions-Female-Without/dp/1580052576/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1"><i>Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape.</i></a> Jaclyn Friedman is writer, speaker, activist, and rising star in the current feminist community. She’s also a “Jewess with attitude.” Over grilled bananas and breakfast tapas, I learned just how much Jaclyn’s Jewish background factors into her activism.</p>
<p><b>Leah Berkenwald (LB):</b> What was your path to feminism?</p>
<p><b>Jaclyn Friedman (JF):</b> My first feminist role model was <a href="/encyclopedia/article/priesand-sally-jane">Sally Preisand</a>, who as fate would have it was the rabbi at my congregation in New Jersey. Growing up, we also had a female cantor, and there’s a story told over and over in which, one evening after services, a boy asked, “Can boys be rabbis too?” Which tells you everything you need to know about the power of role models. The thing about Sally is that I kind of knew she was the first woman rabbi, but I didn't really understand that she was a rock star - she was just my rabbi. It was very subtle; I wouldn't have told you then that I was learning about feminism, but I was.</p>
<p>I got really involved with JFTY (the New Jersey Reform youth group now known as NFTY-GER) where we incorporated the social justice framework I had begun learning from Sally’s leadership into nearly everything we did. So my social justice framework comes from Judaism. Judaism is also often my touchstone; if I feel like the work is getting overwhelming, or I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere, or I want to give up I remember: “It is not yours to complete the work, neither is it yours to desist from it.” That’s from the <i>Pirkei Avot. </i>We would sing the Hebrew version, <i>Lo Alecha,</i> at camp all the time, and it's never left me.</p>
<p>I’ve always identified as Jewish; I celebrate the major holidays and get a lot out of the rituals. I haven't belonged to a congregation in a long time, but I feel like in the last couple of years, Judaism is starting to pull me back. Last month I attended Joyce Antler’s conference on <a href="/blog/Womens-Liberation-and-Jewish-Identity-Bringing-it-home">Women's Liberation and Jewish Identity</a> and it was really useful for me to locate myself in that tradition. The history of Jewish women in feminism is largely invisible, which is why that conference was so meaningful. I suddenly understood, “Oh, I make sense in this context. This is not accidental.”</p>
<p><b>LB:</b> How did you get involved in issues regarding sexuality, rape and violence prevention?</p>
<p><b>JF:</b> That was a lot of what was happening on campus in terms of feminism. I got involved in those issues very early on, and as my undergraduate experience went on they became personal. My junior year I was sexually assaulted. I pressed charges through the on-campus judicial system. Afterward, I started hearing stories from other women about how badly the judicial board had handled their cases. My first response was to go to the Dean of Students – I was in Student Government for most of my time at Wesleyan, so my first inclination was to work within the system. But she stonewalled me, so in my senior year I formed a renegade student committee to investigate the way sexual assault cases were handled on campus.</p>
<p>Our year-long study ended up winning the Psychology department award for best research. We discovered that nobody knew what anyone’s rights and responsibilities were, whether you were the accused or the accuser, so we tried to clarify what was supposed to be happening and make the system more fair and accountable for everyone. The report caused quite a stir, and the school actually implemented a fair number of our recommendations over the next few years. I have to say that’s one of the accomplishments I’m most proud of in my life. Creating institutional change around this stuff is not easy.</p>
<p><b>LB: </b>So how did you go from writing about rape to writing about pleasure?</p>
<p><b>JF:</b> Sexual violence is obviously something we should be against because it’s a horrible injustice, but some of my reasons for being anti-violence are also about being pro-pleasure. People of all genders are robbed of the potential pleasure of our sexuality by sexual violence, and that pleasure is such an untapped positive force in the world. I’ve long thought that one of the reasons <i>Yes Means Yes</i> did so well was because it wasn't just about ending sexual violence -- it was also about imagining the world we actually do want to live in, something we can work towards. Not coincidentally, it would be a world where everyone has better sex except the rapists.</p>
<p>I’m often grateful that Judaism is so clear about this, or at least it was for me. What I took from my Jewish upbringing about sex is “We’ve suffered enough. If it feels good for everyone involved, please, enjoy!” There was no sex shame - it’s a double mitzvah on Shabbat. I know that's not everybody’s Judaism, but that's mine.</p>
<p><b>LB:</b> So tell me about your new book.</p>
<p><b>JF:</b> The new book is called <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/What-You-Really-Want-Shame-Free/dp/1580053440/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1308589244&amp;sr=8-1">What You Really Really Want: the Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety</a>.</i> It’s a workbook to help women figure out what they authentically want from their own sexuality, teasing out all the messages we get from our families and religion and the media and government and our peers and finding the “you” in there and figuring out how to practice that in the real world.</p>
<p>Part of it involves debunking myths about safety and fear, and figuring out how to make decisions about how to manage risk. Making everything about minimizing risk is really not helpful. The idea that women who take risks with their sexuality are stupid or uninformed or need to be protected from themselves is a very infantilizing model. Instead we should be helping women figure out what risks make sense for them. There’s no way to eliminate risk from your sexual life, or from your life in general. It’s about getting educated about what the risks really are (and aren’t), and figuring out which risks are right for you.</p>
<p><b>LB:</b> Do you talk about hookup culture?</p>
<p><b>JF:</b> There’s a chapter called “What’s Love Got To Do With It” that gets into many different ways people do sexual relationships and the pros and cons for all for them. There’s nothing wrong with hooking up. When people are worried about ”the hookup culture” they’re generally worried about two things that are important things to talk about: alcohol and sex, and girls feeling like they don’t have power in relationships with boys. Those are important conversations to have but they get all mixed up with slut-shaming when we just talk about girls and “hooking up.”</p>
<p>The research shows that as long as both partners want a hookup, and neither of them secretly wants a relationship, it’s not damaging to either of them, regardless of gender. But if you’re a girl and you like boys and you think the only way you can get attention from them is to have sex on their terms, that’s a problem. What feels terrible is that you’re giving up your agency, not that you’re having sex outside of a committed relationship. Similarly with alcohol, if you’re getting drunk in order to override what you want because you think you need to be able to do x, y, and z to achieve certain social ends, that feels crappy. What you’re telling yourself over and over is that your own boundaries don’t matter. It’s not the hookup that’s doing emotional damage; it’s you overriding your own boundaries that’s damaging. We need to break that conversation down, and that’s something this book does.</p>
<p><b>LB: </b>What was the process of writing this book?</p>
<p><b>JF:</b> I put out a call for volunteers, and from the hundreds of responses I got, I selected 11 women from around the country with different backgrounds and perspectives to workshop the book. As I drafted each chapter, they would read it and do the exercises and give me feedback on what worked and didn’t, as well as on their experience of working with the book. Their stories are woven through every chapter, and their voices are so, so powerful. I really hope that lots of women will work through the book in groups, because the conversation it fostered was amazing, but even if you don’t have a group, their stories will be there with you.</p>
<p>The process of working with these women was so inspiring for me, beyond what I’d even hoped. I created entire chapters for them that I hadn’t planned on writing. Chapter 6, my favorite, is called “Freaks and Geeks.” It came up because women were asking, “How do I know people want me for me, not for my Black booty or because I’m transgender or because they have a fat fetish,” or whatever the things are about you that make you feel freaky. A big fear is not knowing if someone wants “you” or this fetishy thing that you symbolize, like with those creepy, non-Jewish guys on JDate, right? So the book gives some ways to think about whether someone is fetishizing you, or whether they just like a particular aspect about you in addition to everything else about you. Because people who like you despite that factor aren’t better. I don’t want someone who likes me <i>despite </i>the fact that I'm Jewish in the same way I don't want someone who likes me just because they heard Jewish girls give good blow jobs. It’s about finding a happy medium -- where that often “othered” part of you is something a partner appreciates, but you aren’t being reduced to that characteristic.</p>
<p>Chapter 6 is all about coming to terms with the things about you that the culture thinks are freaky. These are often sites of incredible pain and oppression, which can make the vulnerability of sexuality even more difficult to negotiate. But at the same time, you can’t wait until there’s no more anti-Semitism or homophobia or racism or whatever-it-is-for-you to have sex. Most of us don’t want to, anyhow. In the short-term, what we need to do is make peace with the fact that there are things about us that make our sexuality complicated. And to discover and embrace the strengths we develop to overcome whatever marginalizations we face. After you do that work, the number one way to get past feeling “freaky” is to put yourself in the driver’s seat and stop thinking about what partners want or what they like about you, and start thinking about what you want in a partner, and go after that. I love the process of that chapter and how it evolved. I feel like it’s the emotional center of the book.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/What-You-Really-Want-Shame-Free/dp/1580053440/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1308589244&amp;sr=8-1">What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety</a> <i>will be coming out in the beginning of November. Jaclyn Friedman is currently planning her book tour, which will probably hit around 10 cities starting in Boston on October 27. </i></p>
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<a href="/topics/activism">Activism</a>, <a href="/topics/feminism">Feminism</a>, <a href="/topics/writing">Writing</a>, <a href="/topics/non-fiction">Non-Fiction</a><a href="/tags/what-you-really-really-want-smart-girl-s-shame-free-guide-to-sex-and-safety">What You Really Really Want: the Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety</a>, <a href="/tags/sexual-violence">Sexual Violence</a>, <a href="/tags/interview">Interview</a>, <a href="/tags/sexuality">Sexuality</a>Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:55:25 +0000lberkenwald14437 at http://jwa.orgIn a new light: Avivah Zornberg and the tale of Josephhttp://jwa.org/blog/in-a-new-light-avivah-zornberg-story-of-joseph
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<div class="field-item even"><p>I have long seen myself as the dissident daughter of an orthodox father, a truant who broke her father’s heart by turning my back on his cherished orthodoxy and living a more experimental way of life. It is therefore a delicate matter, this fascination of mine with the Other Daughter – the good girl – the one whose father did not call out after her in censure, the one whose aptitude for learning was cultivated on her father’s knee, the one who no doubt offered both her parents much solace.</p>
<p>Typically, I am way alienated by the goody-goody girl, she who is overly acquiescent to the established order. It would reassure me in my chosen identity if <a href="http://www.avivahzornberg.com/">Dr. Avivah Zornberg</a> with her soft tones, sparkling eyes and high-buttoned blouses were someone I might dismiss. But she is not. It is not simply because she is widely acknowledged as the leading Bible scholar of our day. It is not even because of the acclaim of her books or her dizzyingly eclectic erudition. Of course I admire the ease with which she brings in references from world literature, philosophy and psychoanalysis. But most compelling of all is the ever-deepening richness she brings to the exploration of what it means to be a complex and only partly knowable human being. I am a Zornberg fan, camp-follower, even a groupie, because of all she has to say about the emotional contours of my own life.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.avivahzornberg.com/">Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg's</a> first two books on Genesis and Exodus were acclaimed for their originality and depths. Her latest work, <em>The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious</em> brings a provocative psychoanalytic dimension to sacred texts. An orthodox woman, she breaks new ground by interweaving a dizzying tapestry of ideas. Together with a NYC-based study group, I have been reading her all year. She is currently on her yearly North American lecture tour. </p>
<p>On this long-awaited May evening in New York City, Avivah Zornberg is embroidering upon the biblical tale of Joseph and his brothers, their cruelty to him, his unheard cries of anguish when they throw him into the pit. She speaks of Joseph’s long alienation from his family and even more strikingly, his estrangement from his own inner life throughout the years. Dr. Zornberg guides us through the story of this ruptured family’s reunion years later when Joseph is second in prominence only to Pharaoh and his older brothers are needy supplicants fleeing a famine in their native land. I surrender to the flow of her narrative, swirling with delight in its many currents.</p>
<p>Although it is not my habit to approach featured speakers, Dr. Zornberg and I have enjoyed a brief e-mail exchange in which I agreed to introduce myself after the talk. Still, I hesitate. She and I are not a likely pair. In our tradition a demarcation line runs through the heart of our daily lives: There are foods that are kosher and others that are not, the Holy Sabbath is separated from the profane days of the week; In Orthodox gatherings, there are men and then on the other side of the divide there are women. Among the women there are good girls and there are also some who are…shall we say …not so obviously good. Avivah Zornberg is a woman of great valor and it is clear to me on which side of the fence I belong.</p>
<p>Withal, I overcome my reservations and approach her. I am dressed with uncharacteristic modesty, still I am toned and tanned from a recent vacation while she is soberly garbed in navy blue and moving slowly. I cannot – nor perhaps should I attempt to – hide my breakout from orthodox norms. We are on opposite sides of the Great Divide. I say a few words and, feeling ill at ease, I move away.</p>
<p>It is unfortunate that I cannot approach her for in her telling of the Joseph story, Avivah Zornberg has touched me in my core. She has approached that place where the deepest wound meets the potential gift and she has spoken to that pain with piercing sensitivity.</p>
<p>When Joseph’s brothers throw him into a pit leaving him to his fate among the scorpions, they are deaf to his cries. Finding no echo in the world of family, Joseph becomes estranged from his own inner life. The deliberate rupture with his past, the “oblivion” he seeks while a high-achieving stranger in Egypt, remind me of the 22 years I spent in France in self-imposed exile from my family of origin.</p>
<p>Later on, under extreme duress, his older brother Judah approaches Joseph on his magisterial throne, “Va-yeegash Yehudah”… Judah draws closer and in this encounter, Judah is finally ready to speak his own truth. Both men have suffered from unmet needs for connection and deadening emotional constraint. In the moment of his own soul-baring, Judah breaks through his brother’s defenses. And in the midst of all this terrifying disclosure, Avivah Zornberg assures us, the long-darkened light of spirit once again illuminates Joseph’s face.</p>
<p>Sitting and listening to her in the back row, I know what it takes to draw closer to intimates after many years away, how terrifying it is to approach the naked truth of unfinished drama, how overwhelming it can be to acknowledge the still nagging need for love. I know, as she does, that this is no let’s make-up and live happily-ever-after tale. It is rather a scarred-forever story of misgivings, of rupture and rapprochement.</p>
<p>There is a reception after her talk, affording me another opportunity to approach Dr Zornberg. I speak simply. I tell her that of all the stories of the Bible – yes, really, of all of them – the Joseph story has always evoked in me the greatest emotion. But, I tell her, drawing a tad closer, that until this evening, I have never understood why. At last I can be present with the personal meaning it has for me. She looks at me with silent understanding. For a few moments we hold one another’s glance, eye to eye, enjoying a slower, quieter breath, a moment of possibility, of seeing one another in a whole new light.</p>
<p><i>Susan Reimer-Torn is a writer, an executive coach and workshop leader who lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and blogs at <a href="http://susanrtorn.wordpress.com">susanrtorn.wordpress.com</a>. </i></p>
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<a href="/topics/bible">Bible</a>, <a href="/topics/judaism-orthodox">Judaism-Orthodox</a>, <a href="/topics/spirituality-and-religious-life">Spirituality and Religious Life</a>, <a href="/topics/writing">Writing</a><a href="/tags/torah">Torah</a>, <a href="/tags/public-speaking">Public Speaking</a>, <a href="/tags/lecturing">Lecturing</a>Tue, 24 May 2011 14:27:07 +0000lberkenwald14419 at http://jwa.orgRemembering Netiva Ben-Yehuda http://jwa.org/blog/remembering-Netiva-Ben-Yehuda
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<div class="field-item even"><p>Many years ago I was sitting in a kibbutz dining hall in the north of Israel. One of the older members, a woman, was reminiscing about the equality of the sexes that supposedly existed when the kibbutz was founded.</p>
<p>“We had separate showers, but the men quickly added a hot water heater to theirs and never found time to heat the women’s showers—it was always something that they would do as soon as some other urgent task was completed. So, we women took action. We began using the men’s showers with the men. They were very uncomfortable and in no time we had heated showers.”</p>
<p>I remembered this woman’s face as I read the sad comment this morning at the end of our <a href="/encyclopedia/article/ben-yehuda-netiva">Encyclopedia article</a> about Netiva Ben-Yehuda; “Netiva” passed away on February 28, 2011.</p>
<p>A well-known and feisty Israeli writer, Ben-Yehuda was also the only woman demolition and bomb expert in the Palmach, the elite pre-State army corps. She was headed for the Olympics as a discus thrower until a bullet wound to the arm ended her athletic career.</p>
<p>Like the woman I met on the kibbutz those many years ago, Ben-Yehuda was an early feminist, one who pointed out the gap between the founding myth of sexual equality and the reality. Indeed, according to the Encyclopedia article, “a close reading of [her Palmach trilogy, published between 1981 and 1991] uncovers a subversive exposure of the gap between the Palmach’s promise of ‘sexual equality’ and the reality in its ranks.”</p>
<p>She is also admired for her critical role in bringing Hebrew literature into the 20th century. At a time when Israeli writers were still using Biblical cadences in “proper literature,” she wrote and urged others to write in the language as it was spoken in the Palmach and on the streets. Her three-volume <em>World Dictionary of Hebrew Slang</em> (1982)<em>,</em> written with the late Dan Ben-Amotz, has been a treasured set on my shelves since college. It had a strong influence on my own writing and theatre improv as I tried to capture the ferment I was hearing around me.</p>
<p>For most of the last decade and a half of her life, “Netiva” (nobody ever called her “Mrs. Ben-Yehuda”) also hosted a weekly radio show that featured call-ins and early Israeli (and pre-Israeli) music. When the Broadcasting Authority tried to cut the show as part of budget cutbacks three years ago, the public outcry was so great that the show continued.</p>
<p>As I write this, I find myself leafing through her dictionary again. The title page of Volume I reads, “An International Dictionary of Spoken Hebrew.” Volume II says <em>“Milon Achul-Manyuki l’ivrit m’dubere”t</em>—“A ‘crazy ass’ dictionary of spoken Hebrew.” At the end of the book are a couple of pages filled with words that came in at the last minute: “And this is everything so far. You have some more words? Send. Thanks. And thanks to everyone who has sent us stuff so far. Signed, Netiva, Dan.”</p>
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<a href="/topics/feminism">Feminism</a>, <a href="/topics/radio">Radio</a>, <a href="/topics/israel">Israel</a>, <a href="/topics/military">Military</a>, <a href="/topics/zionism">Zionism</a>, <a href="/topics/hebrew">Hebrew</a>, <a href="/topics/writing">Writing</a>, <a href="/topics/non-fiction">Non-Fiction</a><a href="/tags/palmach">Palmach</a>, <a href="/tags/language">Language</a>, <a href="/tags/dictionary">Dictionary</a>, <a href="/tags/slang">Slang</a>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:19:54 +0000lberkenwald14379 at http://jwa.orgAdding Irena Klepfisz to the Canonhttp://jwa.org/blog/adding-irena-klepfisz-to-the-canon
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<div class="field-item even"><p>In women’s studies classes, we spend a lot of time talking about power: who has it, who doesn’t, and how it moves. Power matters in literature, too, since those in power are the ones who shape the canons – the defined sets of literary works that represent a particular field. The root of the word is “bar” or “reed,” and it’s an easy metaphoric leap to think of texts outside of a particular canon as those that missed the bar. “Bar” also has another connotation, though. Bars keep things out and in. As a result, canons have the power to help define what is important – and what isn’t. That’s why so much feminist work has to do with challenging or expanding the canon by bringing new perspectives on an issue to the forefront.</p>
<p>But even feminists have to make decisions about inclusion and exclusion, and for every Jewish feminist group or individual that we are familiar with, there are probably twenty who we will never hear about. I thought I’d devote my blog post this week to one of those feminists – you won’t find too much about her on the JWA site, although she is a peer of many of the women featured on JWA’s <a href="/feminism/"><i>Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution</i></a> exhibit . Consider it my (small) effort to expand this particular canon.</p>
<p>Her name is Irena Klepfisz. She is a poet and a professor – you can find her these days at <a href="http://irwag.columbia.edu/person/ik90">Barnard College</a>. Born in 1941, she is a child survivor of the Holocaust, a speaker of Yiddish, a poet, and a feminist. She was a major contributor to <a href="/encyclopedia/article/beck-evelyn-torton">Evelyn Beck’s</a> <i>Nice Jewish Girls</i>, an anthology of literature by Jewish lesbians, and in 1986, she published The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women’s Anthology together with <a href="/feminism/_html/JWA040.htm">Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz</a>. The Tribe of Dina was one of the first texts to bring together the perspectives and experiences of diverse but secular Jewish women, including lesbian, straight, Ashkenazi and Sephardi women from various class backgrounds. In their introduction to the anthology, Klepfisz and Kaye/Kantrowitz write about their awareness of the sexism in Jewish culture, and their desire “to present Jewish experience in which Jewish women are central” – in other words, to plant the seeds of a new Jewish literary canon. Klepfisz and Kaye/Kantrowitz were looking to allow Jewish women who identified with Jewish culture, if not always with Jewish religion, an opportunity to speak and be spoken to, to have their voices heard and to know that there were others to whom they could relate. In many ways, they succeeded. Of Klepfisz’s book of poetry Keeper of Accounts, <a href="/feminism/_html/JWA055.htm">Joan Nestle</a> says the following: “I am an unaffiliated New York Jew without family or congregation: Irena Klepfisz is my schul, my cantor, my shabes candle. Her poetry is a religious text I can live with; it leads me not to a booming God but to small voices who shatter the ugliness of history.”</p>
<p>Nestle’s words to describe Klepfisz’s work and its impact on many Jewish women in the 1980’s are more powerful than any of mine. Here’s to a Jewish feminist who has brought light to women’s lives, and whose poetry and essays continue to challenge, expand, and disrupt the canon.</p>
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<a href="/topics/feminism">Feminism</a>, <a href="/topics/teachers">Teachers</a>, <a href="/topics/poetry">Poetry</a>Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:00:50 +0000lberkenwald14174 at http://jwa.orgQ&A With Miryam Kabakov: Editor of Anthology on Orthodox Lesbianshttp://jwa.org/blog/Q-and-A-with-Miryam-Kabakov
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<div class="field-item even"><p>A new anthology, titled <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Keep-Your-Wives-Away-Them/dp/1556438796/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top">“Keep Your Wives Away from Them: Orthodox Women, Unorthodox Desires,”</a> includes essays by 14 women who identify themselves as part of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT">GLBQT</a> community. Some remain part of the <i>frum</i>community, and write anonymously. One is from a prominent politicallyconservative family and talks about her family’s gradual acceptanceprocess of her and her non-Jewish partner. One woman easily passes as aman in Israel, while she doesn’t in America. While most of the essaysare personal coming-out stories, one is a scholarly review of Torahsources and Jewish legal literature on lesbianism.</p>
<p>The book is edited by Miryam Kabakov, a founder of <a href="http://www.orthodykes.org/">New York OrthoDykes.</a>Kabakov now lives in St. Paul, Minn. with partner Mara Benjamin andtheir two daughters, who are 4-years-old and 10-months-old. Kabakovdirects the Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival and calls herself“post-modern Orthodox,” attending Conservative movement-affiliatedCongregation Beth Jacob.</p>
<p>She answered a fewquestions for The Sisterhood, and will be the subject of a forthcomingepisode of our podcast interview series.</p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/128718/">Read the interview at the Sisterhood &gt;&gt;</a></p>
<p><span style="font-style: italic">Debra Nussbaum Cohen is a regular contributor to the <a href="http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/">Sisterhood</a>, which crossposts weekly with Jewesses with Attitude. </span></p>
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<a href="/topics/lgbtqia-rights">LGBTQIA Rights</a>, <a href="/topics/judaism-orthodox">Judaism-Orthodox</a>Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:36:34 +0000lberkenwald14110 at http://jwa.orgMeet our guestblogger Dina Lamdanyhttp://jwa.org/blog/meet-dina-lamdany
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<div class="field-item even"><p>Hi, I’m Dina Lamdany, usually found at <a href="http://fromtherib.wordpress.com/">from the rib?</a> with <a href="/blog/introducing-shira-engel">Shira</a>, another guestblogger here. I’ve only been a part of the Jewesses with Attitude community for a short while, but I’m so glad to be one of the newest guestbloggers here.</p>
<p>I’m a junior at a Jewish day school in Washington DC, and have attended Jewish school since I started my schooling in kindergarten. My writing and opinions on Judaism have been undoubtedly shaped by the traditions I have been taught in school, both inside and outside of the classroom, from formal Torah study to organizing celebrations of the Jewish holidays to using my teachers as resources for books on Jewish feminism. As my involvement in Judaism and the Jewish community has gone up and down over the years, I’ve been lucky to have my school as somewhat of a constant in my Jewish life.</p>
<p>While I had my Bat-Mitzvah at a Conservative synagogue, my family, still egalitarian, now attends an Orthodox synagogue, but I do not feel tied to either denomination. However, I feel strongly Jewish, and believe that to be enough, at least for me.</p>
<p>My blogging career started somewhat by chance---I’d call myself a victim of circumstance. I started reading feminist blogs last summer after an internship at NARAL, but had not really thought about using feminism as a lens through which to look at Judaism until I was introduced to Shira and <a href="http://fromtherib.wordpress.com/">from the rib?</a> through a mutual friend. Since then, I’ve grown to love blogging, not just for the interactive community it creates, but also because it has forced me to look critically at Judaism and to question aspects of Judaism that I had always simply accepted: I believe that I’ve become more of a <i>thinking</i> Jew. At the same time, blogging has also made me realize how attached I am to and how much I value tradition in Judaism. The nuances in my beliefs and writing come from the fact that many times, what I believe in theory comes into direct contradiction with what I’m comfortable with in practice. Luckily, I don’t believe that I’m the only one with this problem, as the Jewish world is still struggling today to balance tradition with the evolving world.</p>
<p>I think the best part of sites like Jewesses with Attitude is the connections they create between different people and ideas. Blogging has both forced and enabled me to read and discover a multitude of other websites that I now read on a daily basis. I have become aware of and interested in subjects that I had never thought of as having anything to do with my modern life, from the ordination of women as rabbis todepiction of women as the “Other” throughout Jewish tradition. I am not only excited, but grateful, to be a part of this interconnected world, as it has shaped me into a more involved feminist and Jew.</p>
<p><i>Check out Dina Lamdany's previous posts on Jewesses with Attitude: </i></p>
<ul><li><a href="/blog/nice-jewish-girl-married-to-a-goy">Esther: Nice Jewish Girl, Married to a Goy? </a></li>
<li><a href="/blog/is-leo-dicaprio-bad-for-the-jews">Is Leo DiCaprio "bad for the Jews?" </a></li>
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Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:54:49 +0000lberkenwald14061 at http://jwa.org